SchooLinks Launches Fully Rebuilt K-5 Career Readiness Platform That Puts Every District's Identity at the Center
The nation's leading K-12 college & career readiness platform introduces a customizable elementary experience that allows districts to brand the platform in their own colors, with their own mascot and story. All while being backed with a redesigned student journey that grows with learners from kindergarten through fifth grade.
Austin, TX, May 27, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SchooLinks, the K-12 college and career readiness platform trusted by school districts nationwide, today announced the launch of a fully rebuilt K-5 career planning platform designed around a single premise: when elementary students see their own school's identity every time they open SchooLinks, career readiness stops being a program, and becomes part of the culture.
The rebuilt platform gives districts full visual and narrative control over the elementary experience. School colors, mascots, and logos are woven directly into the platform's interface, not simply applied as a banner overlay. Districts can select from multiple story worlds, or commission a fully custom narrative where the guide character, the setting, and the language reflect their own community. Every student who logs in sees their school, not a generic tool.
"The biggest differentiator here is the ability for a district to make this platform their own," said Katie Fang, Founder and CEO of SchooLinks. "When students feel connected to their school community from the very first login — when they see their colors, their mascot, their story — career readiness isn't something happening to them. It's part of who they are. That's what we built. Every district has an identity. This platform reflects it."
A Platform That Reflects Your School
SchooLinks K-5 career readiness platform introduces what the company calls a narrative architecture. This is a customizable story world that wraps every lesson, goal-setting activity, and planning tool in a context meaningful to the student. The flagship story world, Mission Horizon, features a guide character who greets students at login, speaks instructions aloud, and walks learners through activities step by step. Districts can deploy Mission Horizon, select an alternative theme, or work with SchooLinks to build a fully original narrative using the company's AI-assisted content pipeline.
Branding is set at the district level and inherited automatically across every school in the system, even allowing individual schools to customize further. The result is a platform that looks and feels local to students, counselors, and families, without placing any additional burden on administrators.
"We wanted every district to be able to say 'this is ours” - said Dave Eddy, Director of Product, SchooLinks. "The theming engine is what makes that possible. You set your brand once, and it lives in every corner of the K-5 experience - the home screen, the character, the mission framing. It doesn't feel like a skin on top of something generic. It is THE experience."
Designed for How Young Students Actually Learn
Alongside the branding and narrative layer, SchooLinks rebuilt the K-5 product experience from the ground up to reflect how learners at this age actually develop. The platform offers two intentionally differentiated experiences , starting with grades K-2, and for grades 3-5, that meet students where they are and prepare them for what comes next.
Younger students in grades K-2 interact through a simplified hub-and-spoke interface with four clear destinations, no nested menus, and large touch targets. All guided by a character who reads every instruction aloud and leads every activity. Reading is supported throughout; no student is left behind because of where they are in their literacy journey.
At the start of third grade, the platform marks a milestone: students are told, by their guide, that they've earned a bigger role. They've been promoted. Side navigation is introduced, self-directed exploration expands, and the guide steps back into a coaching posture. By fifth grade, students are setting their own goals, exploring district pathway options, and building the planning habits they'll carry into middle school.
"The K-2 and 3-5 experiences are genuinely different by design. Not by accident," said Dave Eddy, Director of Product, SchooLinks. "A kindergartner and a 5th grader are different learners. The platform grows with them. And when a student hits 3rd grade and the guide tells them they've earned a bigger role, that's a real moment. That's the platform doing what we designed it to do."
One Journey, Kindergarten to Graduation
The rebuilt K-5 platform is part of SchooLinks' single, continuous K-12 system. Every goal, interest inventory, portfolio entry, and personalized plan that a student builds in elementary school carries forward automatically into middle school and high school, with no exports, no re-onboarding, and no starting over. A student who begins their Flight Plan in third grade walks into high school with that record already built.
"Career readiness doesn't start in middle or high school," said Katie Fang, Founder & CEO of SchooLinks. "It starts the moment a student begins to understand who they are and what they care about. We built this platform to honor that, and to give every K-5 student a real start on their own story, in a place that feels like their school."
What District Partners Are Saying
Districts that have deployed SchooLinks at the elementary level describe an experience that feels substantive, local and inclusive.
"Being an elementary background, the biggest piece that they presented that was just like, 'oh, this is awesome,' was all the elementary pieces within the program that really did spark my interest and really wanted me to learn more about SchooLinks," said Patricia Durham, Elementary and Middle School College & Career Readiness Leader at Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools in North Carolina.
At Westbury Union Free School District in New York, a district that has used SchooLinks across its six elementary schools for three years, leaders pointed to both the implementation experience and the platform's willingness to meet districts where they are. "All of that information carries with them, starting from first grade, all the way through fifth grade and into middle school. When we transition students out of elementary school, they already know: I have a SchooLinks profile, and in that profile my interests are there, my skills are there, the careers I'm interested in are there." said Percy Holmes, School Counselor at Westbury Union Free School District in New York.
Availability
The rebuilt SchooLinks K-5 career planning platform is available now for new and existing SchooLinks districts. Districts interested in a demo, including a live walkthrough with their school's colors and branding applied can visit schoolinks.com/elementary or contact their SchooLinks representative directly.
About SchooLinks
SchooLinks is a modern K-12 college and career readiness platform on a mission to maximize the societal and economic potential of our nation's youth. The platform empowers students in grades K-12 to explore their futures through a comprehensive suite of tools spanning career exploration, academic planning, work-based learning, and postsecondary pathway execution — all within a single, continuous system from kindergarten through graduation. SchooLinks partners with school districts nationwide to build more equitable, cohesive, and thriving communities. Learn more at schoolinks.com.
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David Wolpert SchooLinks 5127109922 dwolpert@schoolinks.com
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